The EU's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has warned that the UK leaving the EU changes the union's border - but he insisted he will work "to avoid a hard border".

Mr Barnier - who has previously served as a European Commissioner and held various French cabinet positions - will hold a private meeting with Enda Kenny after the special joint sitting at Leinster House.

He has already been in Dublin, seven months ago during a tour of European capitals.

A legal expert has warned that government leaders are “quite wrong” in their insistence that the Garda Commissioner was not legally obliged to inform them of financial irregularities at Templemore Garda College.

Members of the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee (PAC) are meeting this morning to discuss whether to call Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan in for questioning again within the week.

Commissioner O'Sullivan's next appearance was due to take place in July, however fresh controversy surrounding the Garda training college looks set to change all that.